For those who are unfamiliar, a German pancake is a delicious pastry pancake that’s thin, light and delicate, and works well as either a breakfast or dessert treat. It’s extremely easy to prepare with the help of the Magic Bullet, and yields a whole lot of pancake, thanks to how much the dish grows in the oven (it’s fun to watch!) A great substitute for the traditional pancake, and perfect for that New Year’s Day hangover. You’re welcome.

Would you believe me if I told you healthy ice cream low in calories, fat and sugar that tasted completely delicious actually exists?

It sounds too good to be true, but I promise it’s real! Blended frozen bananas mixed with any flavoring of your choice is the best and healthiest ice cream ever! If you’re thinking it’ll just taste like blended frozen bananas, don’t worry. When you freeze the bananas, the flavor is less strong, so with the added flavorings, you can’t really taste the banana anymore. You won’t believe me until you try it, so try this pecan banana NICE cream! I call it nice cream because it is nice to your body. No unhealthy fats here! Add your favorite toppings once you blend it up. You have to eat it fast because it melts quickly!

Pecan Nice Cream

Ingredients

3 bananas, chopped and frozen

1/4 cup milk or milk alternative (almond, coconut, soy, or rice milk)

1 Tbsp maple syrup

1/4 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

Add the bananas, milk and maple syrup to a Magic Bullet cup and blend until smooth. Push down with a spatula in between pulses on your Magic Bullet.

Once smooth, add the chopped pecans and pulse a few times to mix them in.

Every time I make this pumpkin pie, nobody knows tofu is the secret ingredient until I say it. People are always surprised by the tofu, but it actually makes a mean pumpkin pie!

Instead of adding evaporated milk or cream, I use tofu to make this pumpkin pie vegan. The tofu and pumpkin blend together nicely with the spices to give you a creamy pumpkin pie filling. And it becomes totally soft, creamy and delicious after baking it in the oven! It will make your home smell so good, too, definitely an added bonus!

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

1 16 oz can 100% pumpkin puree

1 8 oz package silken tofu

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. allspice

1/2 tsp. salt

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Add the pumpkin, tofu, sugar, spices and salt to a Magic Bullet pitcher and blend until smooth and creamy.

Fill the pie shell with the pumpkin filling and bake in the oven for 12 minutes.

When I was a kid, I had a dog that used to collect rocks. She used to dig in the ground for them and pile them up under trees and chew on them and steal them from children. She would have liked this crisp!

I’ve always thought “stone fruit” was a funny name for something edible. It’s not exactly that stones are unappealing, but when I think “inedible rock-like substance,” I don’t exactly think, “name of a delicious, sweet, ripe, juicy snack.”

Anyway, it is stone fruit season, and you should be taking advantage by making crisps for the people you love. You may not realize it, but crisps are an incredibly easy, overwhelmingly delicious dessert. Here, I paired fresh peaches from the farmer’s market with half a pint of blackberries, also from the farmer’s market, which add tang and some chewiness.

Taking a cue from Cook’s Illustrated, I’d recommend quickly peeling the peaches first and then straining them with some sugar. This sort of “macerates” them, by which I mean that you drain off a bunch of liquid, which helps prevent a watery final product.

Peach Blackberry Crisp

Ingredients

1 lb peaches, peeled and cut into big chunks

½ pint blackberries

1 cup flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 Tbsp cornstarch (optional)

1 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar plus 1 Tbsp sugar

1 unbeaten egg

1/3 cup butter, melted

Instructions

Put the peaches in a strainer or colander with the tablespoon of sugar. Let drain for 15 to 30 minutes.

Blend the dry ingredients in the Magic Bullet with the egg.

Put all the fruit in a baking dish and cover with the dry ingredients. Pour the butter on top.

With the Magic Bullet, you’ll be able to whip up a batch of these delightful snacks in a shockingly small amount of time. And by preparing them on your own, you get to avoid all the nasty preservatives and other hard-to-pronounce ingredients that you’ll find in store bought versions of a similar treat.

Coconut Scones

Ingredients

1/2 cup of coconut flakes

3/4 cup flour

1 Tbsp sugar

1 egg (we’ll be separating yolk from egg white)

3 Tbsp butter

1/4 cup buttermilk*

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking Soda

1/4 tsp. salt

* If you don’t have buttermilk, you can stir together yogurt and milk to create a buttermilk substitute – I’ll go through how to do this in the instructions below.

Instructions

Buttermilk is not something found in every refrigerator, so we’re making a substitute in this step – skip if you happen to have it! Combine plain yogurt and milk (in a ratio of about 3/4 yogurt to 1/4 milk) in a small bowl and mix together until creamy. You’re looking to end up with approximately 1/4 cup buttermilk, so you don’t have to use too much milk or yogurt here.

Stir together buttermilk and egg yolk. Side aside egg white to use later in this recipe.

If you find yourself craving pumpkin pie this holiday season, why not skip the extra calories and make a healthy pumpkin mousse instead?

This pumpkin mousse is vegan and gluten-free, and tastes just like a delicious pumpkin pie filling. The secret ingredient is tofu, which makes it really thick and creamy. You can sweeten it with almost any sweetener, from honey to maple syrup to brown sugar. I’ve tried a few different sweeteners in this recipe and they all work really well. I have found that firm tofu works best.

It’s an incredibly easy dessert to whip up (literally) for guests, or simply a treat for yourself. For best results, chill the mousse in the refrigerator for an hour before serving.

Pumpkin Mousse

Ingredients

1 can (15 oz) organic pumpkin

1 package (15 oz) firm or silken tofu

1 Tbsp honey

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. ginger

¼ tsp. allspice

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a Magic Bullet cup and blend until smooth. Add more honey or other sweetener, depending on your tastes.

As I wandered around the farmer’s market recently in tears because summer’s over – OK, that’s an exaggeration – I stumbled across a huuuuge zucchini on sale for $1.50. $1.50! That’s like, 50 cents a pound. I decided now is as good a time as any to make healthy zucchini bread.

What does zucchini even taste like, and why put it in bread?

Actually, those questions are sort of related: zucchini bread doesn’t taste much like zucchini, but zucchini’s moisture-holding properties allows you to make a nice, quick bread that stays fresh for the better part of a week and takes on any flavors that you like.

In this recipe, which is a riff from one posted on Serious Eats, I use big dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg, along with walnuts, which give a spice-bread like quality to the finished product (think carrot cake). And the secret ingredient (whole milk Greek yogurt) lets you make a big loaf of bread with very little fat and not too much sugar.

Slices of this bread made a great breakfast all week, warmed and smothered with peanut butter.

Healthy Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/6 cup olive oil

1 pound zucchini, sliced

¼ cup whole milk Greek yogurt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

2/3 tsp. baking soda

1/6 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

about 1 cup crushed walnuts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease two loaf pans.

Blend zucchini in Magic Bullet until the big chunks are broken down.

In a very large bowl, combine eggs with the oils, zucchini, yogurt, vanilla, and sugar.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the many delicious treats that surround us, but don’t forget that fruits can make the best desserts! Instead of going for ice cream, why not whip up a quick batch of this mango lime sorbet? Simply add frozen mango chunks, fresh-squeezed lime juice, plain Greek yogurt and a pinch of sugar to your Magic Bullet blender, and you have a healthy, refreshing dessert in almost no time!

This mango lime sorbet is low-fat and gluten-free.

Mango Lime Sorbet

Ingredients

1 cup frozen mango chunks

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 Tbsp sugar

Instructions

Have you ever completed the pantry challenge? Two weeks ago, I filled a box with everything in my pantry that I hadn’t used in more than a year. It was a big box. Amid the scones and bloody mary mix, I found ancient graham crackers and dried milk powder, as well as a bunch of old snack food.

These compost cookies (made famous by Momofuku milk bar in New York) do a great job of using up whatever’s in your pantry (Cranberries! Chocolate chips! Chex Mix! Pretzels!), and they are delicious to boot. The mix of a very sweet butter base with a great, salty crunch from snack foods is extremely satisfying. The Magic Bullet does a great job of making the graham cracker filling, which gives a distinctive caramel flavor to the dough.

Compost Cookies

Ingredients

For the graham mixture

6 graham cracker squares

1 Tbsp dry milk powder (or use coffee creamer)

1½ tsp. sugar

⅛ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp butter, melted

1 Tbsp heavy cream (I actually used skim milk and extra butter)

For the flour mixture

1⅓ cups flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

For the finished cookie dough

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

⅔ cup brown sugar

1 Tbsp corn syrup

1 egg

½ tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. ground coffee

about 4 cups snack mix-ins, such as chocolate chips, pretzels, or Chex Mix

Instructions

To make the graham mixture, blend graham cracker squares in the Magic Bullet, then add milk powder, sugar, and salt and blend again. Add butter and cream (or milk if you’re using that instead) and blend.

To make the flour mixture, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

For the cookie dough, combine the butter, both sugars and corn syrup in a large bowl and cream using beaters on medium-high for two to three minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for an additional seven to eight minutes. Use a spatula to get any missed ingredients from the side of the bowl.

Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together, not longer than a minute. Use a spatula to get any missed ingredients from the side of the bowl.

Preheat oven to 375.

Add the graham mixture, coffee, and any snack items that won’t break easily (such as chocolate chips) and blend on low for thirty minutes. Then add anything that will break easily (such as pretzels or potato chips) and manually stir with a big spoon.

On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, add heaping tablespoons of the dough, at least three inches apart from each other. Bake for 13 minutes and check for doneness; the cookies should be golden brown and crispy. Let cookies cool before removing them from the parchment.

*Use your Magic Bullet to make flours, powders and ground nuts. Just put ingredient in your Magic Bullet and pulse until you reach a fine, flour-like consistency.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Combine almond milk, oil, sugar, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. Mix well to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a bubbling boil, about 4 minutes.

Continue to boil the mixture for 2 minutes. Take off heat and mix in the cardamom powder. Cool for 5 minutes.

Add ground almonds, oat flour, 1/3 cup coconut flour, and cardamom seeds to the saucepan. Mix well to form a soft dough. Add 1 tablespoon more coconut flour if the mixture is too wet. Mix and let sit for a min­ute before adding more. The mixture will continue to get less wet as it sits. Taste and add 1 tablespoon more sugar if you like it sweeter.

Pat the sticky dough onto parchment-lined sheet into a 1/4-inch thick square. Cut into 1-inch squares us­ing a knife or a pizza cutter.

Bake for 16 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush almond milk or oil on top. Cool completely be­fore serving or storing. Store on the counter for a day and refrigerated for up to 7 days.